"Tut, tut!" exclaimed Mr. Trimmer, sorrowfully. "That comes of my going away. I ought to have locked up the check-book. I suppose the young man came here to see his grandfather and stole the checks." "No, he never came--at least only once, and just for a moment. Then, his grandfather was so insulting that he only stayed a few minutes. That was when he came to say good-bye. But Mrs. Swinton came, trying to get money for the boy." "I must see Mr. Herresford about this." Trimmer walked mechanically upstairs to the former bedroom, quite forgetting that his master would not be there. He came out again with a short, sharp exclamation of anger, and at last found the old man in the turret room. Herresford was reading a long deed left by his lawyer, and on a chair by his bedside was a pile of documents. "Good morning, sir," said Trimmer, in exactly the same tone as always during the last forty years, and he cast his eye around the untidy room. "Oh, it's you? Back again, eh?" grunted the miser. "About time, too! How long is it since valets have taken to doing the grand tour, and taking three months' holiday without leave of their masters?" "I gave myself leave, sir," replied Trimmer, nonchalantly. "And what right have you to take holidays without my permission?" "You discharged me, sir--but I thought better of it." A grunt was the only answer to this impertinence. "You seem to have been muddling things nicely in my absence," observed Trimmer after a moment, with cool audacity. "Have I? That's all you know. Who told you what I've been doing?" "Your heir is dead, I hear. I hope you had nothing to do with that." "What do you mean, sir--what do you mean?" "I mean that I hope you didn't send him away to the war to save money and keep him from further debt." "My family affairs are nothing to do with you, sir." "So you have told me for the last forty years, sir. I liked the young man. There was nothing bad about him. But I hear you drove him to forgery." "It's a lie--a lie!" "How did he get your checks?" The miser made no answer. Trimmer came over, and fixed glittering eyes upon him. The old man cowered. "You've ruined the boy, and sent him to the war. I can see it in your face. I knew what would happen if I let you alone--I knew you'd do some rascally meanness that--" "Trimmer, it's a lie!" cried the old man, shaking as with a palsy, and drawing further down into his pillow. "I'm an old man--I'm helpless--I won't be bullied." "This is one of the occasions when I feel that a shaking would do you good," declared Trimmer. "No, no--not now--not again! Last time, I was bad for a week. The shock might kill me. It would be murder." "Well, and would that matter?" asked Trimmer, callously. He stood at the bedside, with a duster in one hand and a medicine-glass in the other, polishing the glass in the most leisurely fashion, and speaking in hard, even tones. He looked down upon the old wreck as on the carcase of a dead dog.